Emerson Etheridge - Biography

Biography

He was born in Currituck, North Carolina on September 28, 1819. He moved with his parents to Tennessee in 1831. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1840, and commenced practice in Dresden, Tennessee. He was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1845 to 1847.

He was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-third Congress and re-elected as a member of the American Party to the Thirty-fourth Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1856 to the Thirty-fifth Congress, but he was later re-elected as a member of the Opposition Party to the Thirty-sixth Congress. He served from March 4, 1853 to March 3, 1857 and from March 4, 1859 to March 3, 1861. During the Thirty-sixth Congress, he was chairman of the United States House Committee on Indian Affairs.

In the early months of 1861 Etheridge spoke eloquently in Congress in opposition to secession, for which he was labeled a "Southern Black Republican" by his opponents. He remained loyal to the Union even after the Civil War broke out later that year. When his term in Congress ended, he was elected the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, serving in that position from 1861 to 1863.

In 1867, he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor. He was a member of the Tennessee Senate in 1869 and 1870. From 1891 to 1894, he was the surveyor of customs of Memphis, Tennessee. He died in Dresden, Tennessee on October 21, 1902. He was interred in Mount Vernon Cemetery near Sharon, Tennessee.